


Two Souls

by Allura_Queen



Category: One Piece
Genre: Fem!Luffy, Female Monkey D. Luffy, Mistakes were made, Multi, Nakamaship, No Beta, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Self-Insert, Someone needs to take away my access to writing apps, Team as Family, We Die Like Men, Who let DADAN raise children?, Who let Garp raise children?, but no promises, daily updates, the author is a disaster, who let me write this?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:54:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24846388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Allura_Queen/pseuds/Allura_Queen
Summary: She was Lucy, but she was also Luffy.  She was a girl who dreamed and longed for adventure, but she was also a boy who’s adventure had ended in tragedy. She was a girl who craved friends and family, but also a boy who had lost it all.  Who was she, really? Lucy? Luffy? Was she both? Or neither?Snippets in time of the life of one Monkey D. Lucy. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 93





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, have this disaster of a story while I try to work more on Legends. :)

**_1._ **

Monkey D. Lucy is less than a year old when she realizes she is sharing her body with another soul. She realizes it when she begins hearing his voice in her mind, when her brain puts a name and face to the voice. Monkey D. Lucy is a woman reincarnated, and the soul sharing her body was Monkey D. Luffy, a boy whose dreams had been taken from him, ended when his life was cut brutally short as he chased his dreams. As her first few years of life passed, she listened to the stories of his adventures, the stories she already knew, but something about hearing Luffy tell them made them more special.

He wouldn’t talk about anything to do with Dressrosa and Lucy deduced perhaps it was around then that Luffy’s life - and those of his crew - had ended more tragically than she had originally believed. Sometimes sadness would overwhelm her, and she knew that the emotion came from Luffy rather than herself. She never poked or prodded - if Luffy wanted to share what had happened, he would. But given all that she had learned about his character? She highly doubted that day would ever come.

Lucy is five years old when Luffy convinces her to find their brothers. At eight years old, Ace and Sabo would be calling Gray Terminal and Edge Town their stomping grounds - would have been for the past three years, but no amount of Luffy’s nagging would get her to set foot into the forest at three or four years of age. 

The forest, beautiful yet filled with hidden dangers, was easily navigated with Luffy’s help. He had all the knowledge of a boy who had run wild through these woods for an entire decade on his side, which certainly made Lucy feel much safer. She and Luffy were without the protection the Gum Gum Fruit would offer, any sort of blow would be painful. However, Luffy’s expertise in the forest did nothing to help them find Ace or Sabo.

Not surprising, the boys had been the terrors of Goa for years before actually getting caught. If they didn’t want to be found, it was unlikely that Lucy and Luffy would find them, even with Luffy knowing all their hiding spots. Lucy kicked at a pebble in annoyance - she had hiked up the mountain to Gray Terminal every day for two weeks now and hadn’t found either of the little thieves. 

Lucy is five and a half when she finally - _finally_ \- runs into Sabo, quite literally. The blond boy, top hat hanging precariously from his head, hits the ground, dragging Lucy down into the pile of trash with him. Screaming is heard, along with rapidly approaching footsteps that make Lucy pause for a minute before she rolls to her feet and climbs to the top of the pile she had landed in. Sabo still sits at the bottom of the pile, clutching the head he had slammed into a large piece of scrap metal.

A trio of men are approaching - and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out why they’d be chasing Sabo. She stands then, and waves her arms, letting tears fall down her cheeks.

“Hey!” She yells, sniffing as she points to her right and back towards Edgetown. “That mean boy ran thattaway! He shoved me and took off!” 

“Little shit must be planning to hide in the crowds!” Orange shirt growls angrily. “C’mon, let’s get him!”

Lucy watches them until they’re out of sight before lifting her hand to wipe away her tears - she had never been so glad for being a drama kid in her previous life.

“Hey, thanks, I guess.”

Lucy turned to Sabo and grinned that wide, cheerful grin that only Monkey D. Luffy/Lucy could manage.

“No problem!” She held out her hand. “Name’s Lucy. Monkey D. Lucy.”

The blond slowly shook her hand, staring at her. “You didn’t have to help.”

“Sure, but I wanted to,” she said. “Terminal Rats have to look out for each other, right?”

Sabo grimaced at the nickname many of the adults called the kids who wandered the trash heap. “Yeah. Thanks again.”

“So, why were those guys chasing you?”

Sabo grinned. “Stole their money.”

A snort of laughter from the young girl made him grin wider. “I usually don’t go after people in groups, but they were flashing some serious cash while bragging about a lucky find here in the garbage. Couldn’t properly call myself a thief if I didn’t help myself.”

Because of Sabo, Lucy soon meets Ace and life moves on at a slow and steady pace. Ace is still gruff and rude, much as he had been to Luffy as a child, but he seems to keep better handle on his temper. She and Luffy chalk it up to her being a little girl, rather than Ace being different in this life. Much like in the former life, Lucy learns to hunt and steal from Sabo and Ace, and she spends much of her free time on the mountain. 

She even manages to convince the boys to come down to Foosha every now and then, and watches with amusement every time Makino drags them away to try on new clothes every time they show up in ones that are ripped and torn. 

The rest of that year passes before Lucy even knows it, and then one morning she, Ace and Sabo come down the mountain to find a pirate ship docked at the port. Lucy’s breath hitches before she takes off to the bar, ignoring Ace and Sabo’s shouts for her to wait until they know if the pirates are dangerous.

She throws one of the doors to the bar open and stares with wide eyes at the laughing, joyous pirates inside. Her eyes zero in on Shanks immediately and she’s across the room in a flash, a wide grin on her face.

“Hey, you’re a pirate, right?! Will you tell me about your adventures?”

The red haired pirate blinks at the little girl, mystified.

“I’m gonna be Pirate Queen someday!”

A grin splits Shanks’ face and his head tips back as laughter rings through the bar. Today was it, today was the start of the rest of Lucy’s life, and she couldn’t wait.


	2. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life continues on as normal... until Lucy finds herself in some trouble she had forgotten about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're going to be aiming for daily updates, but we'll see how long that manages to stay possible considering work is getting super busy at the moment.
> 
> For those who don't know, I work as a dog groomer/bather and we've entered flea and tick season! Which means lots of dogs coming in for shave downs and flea baths. Yikes.
> 
> Anyway, onto the next chapter!

_**2.** _

The time Shanks and his pirates used Dawn Island as their base is one of the best times of Lucy's life. She, Sabo and Ace made a habit of straying into the village whenever they were in town to hear stories about their adventures. Shanks found the trio of kids who dreamed of being pirates one day amusing the have around, and he certainly didn't mind the awed looks he and the crew would get during some of their more dangerous retellings.

Lucy, in particular, seemed dead set on being Pirate Queen one day. She would never shut up about it, and was always begging Shanks to take her on their next adventure no matter how much he said no. Surprisingly for the pirates, Lucy decided to prove her worth by taking a page out of Luffy's book - okay, so Luffy has told her to because scars were _cool_ , and this one is what made them _them_ \- and she had stabbed herself under the eye just as he had done.

Ace and Sabo had quickly taken it upon themselves to smack the sense back into her because she had obviously lost her mind. She had just laughed while Makino bandaged the wound, a look of dread and resignation on her face.

"Lucy, you idiot."

"That wasn't very smart."

"I couldn't let Shanks think I'm not strong!" she protested. "Not if I'm gonna be Pirate Queen!"

"Pirates should know how to swim first, _Anchor_ ," Shanks teased before chugging a bottle of sake.

"No point in learning," Lucy shrugged. "I just won't fall in the water."

"Oh, and how do you plan to avoid it, stupid?" Ace scoffed.

"I am _not_ stupid!" Lucy hissed, eyes narrowed in a glare.

"Ace, Lucy, c'mon, calm down," Sabo grumbles, planting himself on a stool between his feuding siblings.

And that was a thing now, wasn't it? Only a few months after Lucy had met the boys, Ace had stolen the sake from Dadan - who now hosted the three rambunctious children in her home thanks to Garp finding out they all knew each other - and the three had made that unbreakable pact, sealing their bond as siblings for the rest of their lives.

"Sabo's the nice brother," Lucy declares, with Luffy's laughter echoing in her brain.

"What did you just say?!"

"Sabo. Is. The. Nice. Brother." Lucy repeated slowly, smirking at Ace over her cup of orange juice.

Sabo let out a sigh, and sent a pleading look towards Shanks who intervened if only to keep another fist fight from breaking out between Ace and Lucy.

"Alright, enough," Shanks said. "If you two don't behave, I won't tell you about our latest adventure."

Lucy perked up immediately, turning her head and giving all her attention to Shanks. Ace grumbled, but also fell silent as he stared at the red haired captain expectantly.

"Tell us, tell us!" Lucy cheered, grinning brightly.

"Well, it all started when I had a run in with a rather stubborn and strange marine…"

**~~~TS~~~**

Lucy hasn't exactly forgotten that mountain bandits would one day come in the bar and cause trouble. She had remembered quite clearly the stuck up man who thought his small bounty of eight million made him tough. And she supposed that, by East Blue standards, this was true. But then again, the government gave someone like Buggy the Clown a fifteen million Beri bounty, but at least Buggy could be dangerous if he wanted to be - these bandits would probably lose against a sheet of wet paper.

But she played her part, getting angry with Shanks over his apparent 'weakness' then angrily eating the Devil Fruit - which was _disgusting_ , by the way - and now she was officially a rubber woman. Ace and Sabo hadn't exactly been too pleased by this - Lucy got into enough trouble without them having to worry about her new powers. A few days later, the bandits returned, Lucy was alone as Ace and Sabo went to catch dinner, she picked a fight with the bandits, nearly drowned and was the reason Shanks lost an arm.

She hadn't seen any particular reason to change these certain events - Shanks would certainly be powerful enough with only one arm - so she let things play out naturally as they were meant to.

The promise had happened just as it was meant to, a tearful Lucy exclaiming that she would be Pirate Queen and then Shanks despairing the cherished straw-hat on her head, telling her to return it once she's a great pirate. It was a sad goodbye, but Lucy would make sure that they would meet again one day. It wouldn't end like it had for Luffy - this adventure would be seen through to the end this time.

After the Red Haired Pirates set sail and left Dawn Island behind for the last time, life returned to normal for Lucy and her brothers as they ran roughshod over the island, terrorizing the crooks and criminals of Gray Terminal with ease from many years of experience. With each day the treasure they saved grew and grew.

The peace and security Lucy had gained in the last few years came to a screeching halt with the next obstacle. One she had forgotten about.

Lucy had spent an uneventful morning in Gray Terminal, managing to find quite a few gems in the trash. Keeping away from the others who searched through the garbage heap were always keeping tabs on one another, but Lucy was quick and small enough that she could escape the larger and less agile people as they tried to take her treasures.

It was thieving that got her into this mess. She was just minding her own business, adding the gems, rings and necklaces she had managed to scrounge up into the Treasure Tree. She had placed the cover back over the branch and hoped down, planning to get a start on hunting up some dinner for everyone when a group of men had come into the clearing.

Lucy and the lavender haired man had stared at each other briefly before a cold sweat broke out down her back as she finally managed to find his name deep within her and Luffy's memories.

_Porchemy._

"So, you must be Lucy," Porchemy smirked. "We've been looking for you three Terminal Rats. See… Ace took something that didn't belong to him. And you're going to tell me where he hid it."

Lucy blinked at him, completely unamused. "No I'm not. It's your own fault for being so incompetent a ten year old could steal from you."

An angry tick mark appeared at the top of Porchemy's forehead. "You little… Listen, I'm a man of my word. You just give us the exact amount of money that Ace took and we'll leave you alone, and in one piece."

Lucy took an unsure step back, but she was backed against the tree with the only escape routes leading past Porchemy and his three stooges.

"A bloody and bruised piece, but still…"

The four men all burst into laughter as Porchemy snatched Lucy up by the back of her shirt. She struggled furiously in his grip, twisting and turning like a cat trying to get out of a nape hold.

"Let go of me!" she snarled pounding his giant arm with her little fists. "You put me down right now!"

"There's rumors about you, you know," Porchemy mused, his malicious grin growing wider. "People say you have a Devil Fruit that keeps you from getting hurt by punches and kicks. But y'know… all Devil Fruits have a weakness. What say we find yours?"

Terrified, Lucy opened her mouth and screamed. " _Sabo! Ace! Help me!_ "

Laughing, Porchemy turned on his heels and carried Lucy away from the Treasure Tree, his men following close behind them.

Lucy, for the first time, felt actual fear.

**~~~TS~~~**

_There was so much pain, everywhere. Burning and stinging and it hurt to even breathe_.

Lucy was limp as she dangled from the rope that held her above ground and hanging from the ceiling. Blood dripped down her face, her arms, her back… one of her eyes was swollen shut and cuts and scrapes littered her entire body, along with a myriad of bruises.

"Where did Ace hide the money?"

Lucy flares up at Porchemy through one tear filled eye. "I'm not telling you anything."

Another punch to the face had her gagging as her mouth filled with blood and the spikes sliced through her cheek.

"Where did Ace put the money?"

 _Ptooh_! A splatter of saliva and blood landed on Porchemy's cheek. Unamused, he lifted his arm to wipe it off before driving another punch into the girl's gut.

"The pain will end if you tell me where the money is, kid."

 _It'll end because you killed me_ , Lucy thought viciously. _As long as I don't say anything he can't kill me. Ace and Sabo will be here soon. I know they will._

Luffy remained silent in her mind but she could feel his resolve and strength coursing through her veins. She wouldn't sell out her brothers - she'd rather die.

Hours passed, but if you asked Lucy how long she thought she'd been tortured, she would have said days. The pain was excruciating and never ending, and there were a couple times where she wanted to cave before Luffy's resolve would once again take control, keeping her silent.

And if she cried when her brothers _finally_ smashed through the wall of the shack, righteous fury on their faces, well… only the three of them would remember it.

Healing after the beating was a boring affair. Ace and Sabo wouldn't let her do _anything_. Hunting? Nope. Stealing? Nope. Their daily fights? _Are you stupid? You need to heal first._

Three guesses as to which brother said that. Want a hint? It wasn't Sabo. Needless to say, Ace's concern vanished when Lucy's pipe flew through the air and hit him in the head, prompting the irritated older boy and his sister to get in a scuffle that Sabo had to break up by smacking both of them with his own pipe.

Lucy would swear up and down that it hurt, but both her brothers had scoffed, saying that there was no way the pipe had hurt her with her Devil Fruit.

And if, after the Porchemy incident, Lucy noticed that her brothers seemed to put more effort into training, well… she wouldn't call them out on their over protectiveness.

No matter how sweet it was.


	3. 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life after Porchemy goes on and even more fluff as the siblings deal with Lucy getting sick.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me of the past: We're gonna do daily updates!
> 
> Me Now: Well, two days in a row wasn't too bad...

_**3** _ **.**

Life after Lucy healed was quiet. Peaceful.

She didn't trust it at all. She had taken to keeping a little journal hidden, with all that she and Luffy combined could remember about his life previously. She kept it hidden under a false

floorboard she had snuck in when she, Ace and Sabo had built their tree-house. It was handy, having a little compartment for her secrets.

She had a vague idea of when things would happen, but very rarely were dates or periods of time passing mentioned in the manga or show for One Piece. And Luffy was no help in that department either.

All she knew was that sometime in the few months before Ace's birthday on January 1st, Sabo's father would see them in town, and then Bluejam's pirates and Sabo's asshole father would take Sabo away from them. He'd set sail, his ship would blow up… and he would be lost to them forever.

Lucy wanted to save Sabo, but she didn't know how that would alter the course of the world. Would Sabo be a Pirate? A marine? Bounty hunter? What sort of place would exist for someone who wasn't supposed to have a future? What would the consequences of stopping what was supposed to happen be?

All the questions made Lucy's head hurt. She decided to leave it as a problem for the her of tomorrow.

Ace and Sabo had once again increased the severity of their training, working on their reflexes and timing. At first, Lucy had been puzzled, then she'd realized this was a great opportunity to get her brothers learning something that would give them an edge in the future.

"Why don't you guys try it blindfolded?" Lucy asked. "When you take away one sense, the rest get sharper. Would really help improve reaction time."

And if they by some miracle got a grip on Observation Haki before Ace set sail at seventeen, then Lucy wouldn't complain.

Her two brothers exchanged a look before Ace shrugged and ripped a strip of cloth off of his shirt, tying it around his eyes.

"Okay," he mumbled, adopting an offensive stance with his pipe. "Try and hit me, Sabo."

With a grin that bordered on smug, Sabo lunges forward and smacked his pipe right into Ace's head.

"Ow! Sabo, not so hard!"

"Aw, but then how will you be motivated to dodge if you don't have the threat of pain as a consequence?"

… Lucy may call Sabo the nice brother, but sometimes he had a vindictive streak just as big as Ace's and that was terrifying.

And as fun as it was watching Sabo wail on Ace with a pipe, Lucy soon grew bored with watching them train. Quietly, she got to her feet and wandered off into the forest, dinner on her mom and pipe slung over her shoulder. As she walked, she tried to puzzle out some sort of rough timeline for events to come. Ace's birthday was on January 1st, which was still about four months away. Luffy could remember that it snowed before everything happened with Sabo, and then there had been a pretty bad rainstorm that had damaged the tree-house, the entire reason they'd been in Gray Terminal that day that Sabo's father and Bluejam's men had come for them.

The snap of a twig brought Lucy out of her thoughts and she froze at the growl that echoed through the forest. That huge tiger was somewhere nearby and Lucy had wandered off alone like an idiot. Hugging out an annoyed sigh, she headed into the thicker, denser area of trees. The Tiger Lord wouldn't be able to squeeze through and Lucy would be able to hunt in peace that way.

She had caught two deer by the time Ace and Sabo found her, their pipes bouncing off her skull as both of them launched into a lecture about ' _not wandering off, you idiot!_ ' and ' _Lucy, that was dangerous! What if Bluejam's guys were out here_?' And she would listen, that soft, fond smile playing on her lips as they fussed and made sure she had no injuries.

Sometimes, being the baby of the family wasn't as annoying as she made it out to be.

**~~~TS~~~**

Monkey D. Luffy has always prided himself on the fact that never once in his life had he ever been sick. Then Nami has gotten ill after Little Garden and he along with most of the crew had been at a loss to help her. Then they had Chopper, so there was no reason for any of them to learn when they had a doctor.

That's why it was such a conundrum to him now, as Lucy's soul took a backseat as her body struggled to fight off the sickness that had gripped her. Ace and Sabo were snoring away next to them, still lost in the haze of a dreamless sleep. Lucy, meanwhile, was sweat soaked and breathing harshly, lost in the fever haze.

Luffy couldn't do anything, even if he knew how. He hated not being able to help his Nakama. And Lucy _was_ Nakama. He's decided that the second he realized he was sharing his body with someone else. It was like having a sister, even if he couldn't run and play and laugh with her the way she did with Ace and Sabo.

So watching his sister be ill and being unable to help filled Luffy with a strange feeling of helplessness.

It wasn't until Sabo began to stir two hours later that anyone took notice of Lucy's strange breathing. The rasping breaths caught his attention immediately and had the blonde rolling over and reaching a hand across the pile of blankets on the floor to rest on Lucy's forehead. His eyebrows scrunched together and a frown tugged at his lips before he sat up and kicked Ace's leg roughly.

"Ace, wake up, Lucy's sick."

Ace sat up almost immediately. "What? But idiots don't catch colds."

Lucy groaned and rasped out a whisper. "I hate you. You're being loud."

"Headache?" Sabo asked sympathetically. "You have a fever. Sore throat, too, by the sound of you."

"Chills?" Ace asked.

"Yes, yes, and yes."

"Sounds like the flu," Sabo said to Ace. "Remember when I got it a couple years ago? I was puking everywhere."

"Lucy's not having the nausea though," Ace pointed out. "Probably a good thing. She didn't seem to handle it well when you got sick."

"I'm gonna joke down the mountain to get the doc in Foosha," Sabo decided. "You should stay with Lucy."

"You're going all the way to Foosha?"

"The docs around Edge Town and Gray Terminal are all crooks," Sabo pointed out. "And we've stolen from them before. I wouldn't trust them with my pet let alone our baby sister. They'd be more likely to try and kill her than help her."

Ace frowned - Sabo had a point. "You better get going then, if you wanna make it back with the doc by nightfall."

Sabo nodded and ducked through the trapdoor, disappearing into the forest. Ace turned his attention back to Lucy with an intense frown, noting that she had already fallen back asleep.

"Okay," he said to himself. "Okay, this is no big deal. You know how to take care of sick people, Lucy's no different."

Except it _was_ different. The worry that gripped his heart was different than when Sabo got sick, Sabo and he had been sick plenty of time over the years. Lucy had _never_ gotten sick in her life according to Makino. Lucy was as healthy as a horse. Or so he had thought until now.

Ace brushes some sweaty strands of long black hair back from Lucy's face, not speaking until her eyes opened and focused on him. "I'm going to get a bucket of water and a rag from Dadan's. I'll be back in ten minutes, so don't go anywhere, okay?"

"'Kay…" came the sleepy, muttered reply.

True to his word Ace was back within ten minutes and settling the cool, damp cloth rag on Lucy's forehead. Once she was settled, he sat back and watched her carefully for any signs of discomfort before sighing. All he could do now was wait for Sabo to return.

It was the worst seven hours of his life, but he would never admit that to anyone but himself. But, judging from Sabo's soft teasing and Lucy's laughter whenever he would snap at them for calling him soft, they both knew it.


	4. 4.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even when you are grieving, time moves on... soon Lucy will be saying farewell to Ace as he sets out to sea.

_**4...** _

Lucy couldn't breathe.

Smoke blurred her vision and choked her lungs and she had lost sight of Ace a long time ago as the two of them tried to flee the fire Bluejam's men had set to Gray Terminal. She was regretting her choice of just letting things play out however they were meant to. Now Sabo was trapped back in High Town and she was separated from Ace and lost in a _fire_.

She didn't know which way was out. She couldn't breathe, tears stung her eyes - or was that the smoke? She wanted to cry, she had never wanted to cry as much as she did in this moment, surrounded by the scorching flames on all sides as Gray Terminal burned.

"Lucy!"

A sob ripped from her throat. "Ace?!"

"Lucy, where are you?!"

"Ace, help me!"

She should have kept her mouth shut. If she had, Bluejam wouldn't have kept her and Ace tied up. She just couldn't stand the way the man had talked about Sabo, as if their beloved brother was no better than the selfish Nobles who had raised him. Fury has simmered under Lucy's skin before erupting with a fiery fury, and perhaps telling a very strong and scary pirate to go fuck himself with a cactus wasn't the smartest idea to have popped into her brain. She blamed herself for the language, and Luffy for the impulsiveness that had driven her to snap in the first place. Both of them had very little patience for people who insulted their brothers.

"Lucy? Lucy! Hey, answer me."

A gentle shake had the girl's tear filled eyes rising from the ground to stare at Ace.

"Ace, I'm scared…"

"We're gonna be fine," he assured her. "And when this is done, we'll… I dunno, we'll go bust Sabo out of High Town."

They didn't make it far before running into Bluejam and his men, just like Luffy remembered. And Dadan and her Bandit's appeared just as before, wrestling a struggling Lucy away while Dadan and Ace stayed to fight.

They never caught up to Sabo before he got on the boat, before it was blown up.

He was gone.

**~~~TS~~~**

Life after Sabo was strange. Often Lucy and Ace both found themselves turning to ask him a question, or his opinion on something before turning pale and falling silent when they remembered that their brother no longer was part of this world.

Every now and then, when Ace thought she was asleep, he would light the little lamp in their tree-house and read a note. It was probably the one Sabo had sent telling Ace to take care of her. Lucy never tried to read it - it wasn't for her eyes, and whenever Ace read it it would bring him peace, if only for a few days before he needed to read it again.

Lucy trained with him now, lashing out at him with her pipe while he was blind folded. He also stopped making fun of her inability to control her Devil Fruit powers and began working on teaching her how to actually hit her target. His advice, along with Luffy's, was invaluable and the improvements started to slowly show.

She still couldn't beat him in a fight, though, which was totally unfair. Luffy agreed, in that whiny tone that only baby siblings could manage when they were sulking about something.

Ace's personality began to change as well. He wasn't as quick to anger, he used please and thank you, and his patience seemed to grow from being about as long as the body of a roly poly to being infinite. At first the change had weirded Lucy out enough to ask Ace if he'd been kidnapped and replaced with a robot who was nicer than her brother was.

She learned quickly that Ace was still Ace when his pipe bounced off the back of her rubbery skull.

Life continued on, time marching forward without a care in the world as days turned to months and then into years. By the time Lucy was ten years old, she could only recall a handful of memories involving Sabo. Terrified of forgetting him, she hastily scrawled down all she remembered about her brother in her journal, struggling not to cry.

Even three years later, Ace would read the letter, though not as often. And now, whenever he read it, there would be anger in his eyes rather than the peace it used to bring him. For a moment, Lucy wondered why, before dismissing it. Ace and Sabo's letter was for them alone, and not her. The urge to sneak a peek faded with the melting snow as winter turned into spring.

At thirteen, Ace was in that weird and awkward stage where all his limbs were too long for his body and his head seemed too large for his shoulders. More often than not, as he adjusted to his growth spurt, he would trip over his own two feet and go sprawling, leaving a cackling Lucy in his wake.

This was also around the age where Ace's narcolepsy showed itself for the first time, effectively scaring ten years off of Lucy's life when Ace just dropped mid sentence and almost fell off that cliff where she and her brothers had made their vow so many years before. She'd acted quickly to wrap one hand around a nearby tree a few times before stretching the other to grab Ace before he hit the water.

After she'd stopped being terrified by the ordeal, she'd found a marker to draw on his face at Luffy's urging, the fear melting from her body as mischief took root. It took Ace _hours_ to realize that **LUCY RULES** was scrawled across his forehead. The dummy deserved for nearly dying on Sabo's birthday, the day she and Ace had spent every year since his death coming up here to pour sake in those three cups and reaffirm their bond before dumping Sabo's over the side into the ocean in his memory.

She'd had to hide for the next three days but it was worth it. When he stopped trying to kill her, Lucy had dragged him down to town so the doctor could diagnose her brother's narcolepsy and get him on some medications that would help. He grumbled and complained the whole time, but took the medicine without complaint whenever Lucy would glare at him.

When Ace turned fourteen he found his hat. The first time he'd appeared back from a trip to town wearing it, Lucy couldn't stop staring. The bright orange cowboy hat was an atrocity, but somehow the sight of it filled her with joy. Joy that doubled when she saw Ace's trademark red bead necklace hanging around his neck. Slowly, things were beginning to go the way that they should.

Yet with each day that passed, and as Ace's seventeenth birthday loomed closer and closer, a pit of sadness began to grow in Lucy's chest.

She didn't want to be alone.

**~~~TS~~~**

Lucy's sudden clingy phase did not go unnoticed by Ace. It started out as adorable - Lucy asking to join him hunting or offering her help to steal from some thugs. But then it never stopped.

_Ace, let's spar! Ace, let's go hunting! Ace, let's go to town!_

As much as Ace loved his little sister, it was getting on his nerves. That's why he was going to sneak out before she woke up today. He had a group he wanted to hit, and they were a bit more dangerous than the usual thugs, so he'd prefer to keep Lucy out of trouble.

When Lucy awoke alone, she laid there for a moment, scowling at the ceiling. If Ace wanted to be left alone he could have just asked instead of sneaking off like a jerk. Sighing, she sat up and ran her fingers through the tumble of curls that fell to her shoulders before placing her hat on her head.

She could just find something else to do today and wait for Ace to reappear this evening.

She could go a day without him by her side.

…. but she hadn't counted on one day turning into two, then three, then four.


End file.
